Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler, Chapter 17: <a target="_blank" onclick="openPopupWindow(this); return false" href="entityvote?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0001&auth=tgn,6002050&n=1&type=place">Fort Fisher</a>.

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Chapter 17: Fort Fisher.

Plans for reducing Fort Fisher

Fort

Fort

Early in September it was proposed to me by General Grant that I should send down General Weitzel, with Brigadier-General Graham of the naval brigade, to reconnoitre the position of Fort Fisher, and that I should act in conjunction with a fleet which was being prepared by the navy. General Weitzel was accordingly sent down to make that reconnoissance. About the 20th of September, as I remember, he returned and reported the condition of things there.

On the 29th of September, the Army of the James made a march across the river, which resulted in the capture of Battery Harrison and the line that we subsequently occupied on the north bank of the James until the surrender of Richmond in April, 1865. It was from this line that the negro troops under Weitzel marched and took possession of the rebel capital. This movement across the James required all the force I had. General Grant said to me that we could not go on the Wilmington expedition at that time for two reasons. The first of these was the want of disposable forces, although at that time it was not contemplated to send down but about three thousand men, as it was supposed that Fort Fisher could be taken by a surprise. The second and perhaps the more cogent reason was that the fleet had given great notice by its preparation; the ships had gathered at Hampton Roads, and published that they had the largest armament in the world, and were going to take Wilmington. This seemed to cut off all hope of surprise. General Grant then said to me that he would not have anything to do with it, to use his exact phrase, because he could not afford an army for a siege, and he supposed the purpose for which the fleet was getting ready was so far known to everybody that there could be no surprise. [775]

From the 20th of September to the 7th of October the navy gathered a fleet at Hampton Roads, and was practising there. The vessels lay there from that time till the middle of December.

In that time, after hearing of the great destruction for many miles around made by an explosion of gunpowder at Erith, England, I made an examination into the various instances of the explosive effect of large quantities of powder; and I believed that possibly, by bringing within four or five hundred yards of Fort Fisher a large mass of explosives, and firing the whole in every part at the same moment — for it was the essence of the experiment to have the powder all exploded at the same instant — the garrison would at least be so far paralyzed as to enable, by a prompt landing of men, a seizure of the fort.

I went to Fortress Monroe to examine the details of that question among others. While there I received on November 1 a telegram to report at once to Washington, and on reaching there found that I was to be sent to New York to take charge of the city during the election. While at Washington I suggested the powder experiment to the President, to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and I think to General Halleck. It was readily embraced by the Secretary of the Navy and with more caution by the President. Further investigation was suggested, and I left the matter in the hands of the navy, and on November 2 went to New York.

When I returned on the 16th of November I found that the idea had received so much favor at Washington that it was determined it should be tried. One consideration which determined the making of the attempt was that if it should prove a success the whole system of offensive warfare by naval procedure would be changed, for no forts near harbors would be safe if a small vessel loaded with gunpowder and run ashore under a fort and exploded would destroy the people in it, and no garrison would ever remain in a fort when such a vessel was seen approaching.

The experiment was well worth trying on another account. The navy had storehouses for more than five thousand barrels of powder in a place, near many of our large cities. Of course, as at Erith, which was one of the English government storehouses, it would only be a question of time when some of those deposits of powder would be exploded either by design, carelessness, or accident. What the [776] effect of such an explosion would be was a question which seemed very necessary to be solved in order to determine the safety of the neighboring cities. The Naval Ordnance Bureau had many reports recommending the removal of the powder so stored lest damage might ensue, but those reports had never been acted upon by Congress. On this account also it was thought best to test the question.¹

The powder used at Fort Fisher was navy cannon powder, each grain of which is nearly an inch cube, in order that it may burn slowly, so as not to burst the guns.

A commission of naval experts was appointed to examine the subject in behalf of the Navy Department, before whom I was not called. The navy was to furnish a vessel and one hundred and fifty tons of powder. The army at first agreed to furnish one hundred tons of powder and afterwards fifty tons more. A part of this amount was partially damaged powder, all that the army had; and the rest was made up by purchasing blasting powder.

I immediately left Washington, having nothing further to do with this matter, the navy undertaking to see that the powder was properly placed and exploded, and went to my headquarters at the front. [777]

Decorative Motif.

[778] [779]

Upon my return General Grant left the command to go to Burlington, N. J., to visit his family, leaving me as senior officer in command of both armies until he returned on the 24th of November. I fix the date of his return by the following telegram to the Secretary of War, which was the last telegram I sent while in command of both armies:--

headquarters Army of the James, Nov. 24, 1864, 11.30 P. M.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
In the absence of Lieutenant-General Grant, I have to report to you that the battery and cavalry horses are suffering for hay, and the government is losing large sums in the depreciation of these horses from this cause. For this there can be no excuse, as there is hay enough in the country. It can only arise from inexcusable remissness somewhere, which needs but to be brought to your attention to be remedied.
Benj. F. Butler, Major-General Commanding.

During General Grant's absence I was informed that the navy had adopted my plan, and the vessel to contain the powder was being got ready by the navy, which was to furnish one hundred and fifty tons of powder at Fortress Monroe. Later I received in answer to a telegram which I had sent General Dyer, chief of ordnance, a message that the army would also furnish one hundred and fifty tons of powder at Fortress Monroe.²

General Grant had then returned. From information received it was supposed that the garrison at Wilmington and all the forces about Wilmington, except a small garrison at Fort Fisher, had been detached to meet General Sherman. Thereupon, after a consultation, General Grant desired me to do two things. One was to send an expedition up the Roanoke River and endeavor to reach the railroad between Weldon and Wilmington, so as to cut off supplies and reinforcements from the enemy going north to Petersburg and Richmond, and also to prevent reinforcements being sent by the Weldon Road to Wilmington in case we moved in that direction. The other was to get a force to be sent down to see if we could not effect a surprise at Wilmington, as it seemed evident that the [780] enemy supposed the expedition gotten up early in the fall had been abandoned. This expedition up the Roanoke was to be a link in the chain of operations, and was to be made in conjunction with the navy. I sent a despatch to Admiral Porter about the Roanoke expedition.³ On the same day, the 30th of November, I received a telegram from General Grant urging the importance of Weitzel's getting off at once with the expedition.⁴

I had gone to Fortress Monroe and had a personal consultation with the admiral upon the Roanoke expedition after my consultation with General Grant. I answered his telegram by repairing to City Point in person to get further instructions from General Grant. They were that we should move as soon as the navy was ready.

Matters remained in that condition until the 4th of December. On that day I received a telegram from General Grant urging me to hurry off the expedition either with or without the powder-boat.⁵ On the same day I telegraphed to Admiral Porter to hasten operations, as news which I had received made time of great importance.⁶

On the same day, also, I received word from Admiral Porter that the navy was ready for the one hundred and fifty tons of powder, and asking me to have it packed ready for them.⁷ On the 5th of December I telegraphed to Captain Edson, ordnance officer, to have the powder ready at once,⁸ and on the same day I received word⁹ from Admiral Porter that he was all ready and would call on the ordnance officer for the material, which he got. On the 6th of December, hearing nothing further, I telegraphed to Admiral Porter asking him when he could be ready,¹⁰ and received an answer informing me that he had got most of his ammunition, meaning the powder with which to fill the powder-boat, and would commence loading the next day, when he could tell me within an hour when he would be ready to start.¹¹

It will thus be seen that Admiral Porter promised to notify me on the morning of the 7th of December. I had to make all my arrangements by verbal instructions and orders. On the 6th of December I issued, through my chief of staff, Brigadier-General Turner, the instructions intended for the expedition as follows:-- [781]

Headquarters Department of Virginia and North Carolina, Army of the James, in the field, Dec. 6, 1864.
Maj.-Gen. G. Weitzel Commanding:
General:--The major-general commanding has entrusted you with the command of the expedition about to embark for the North Carolina coast. It will consist of about sixty-five hundred infantry, two batteries of artillery, and fifty cavalry. The effective men of General Ames' division of the Twenty-Fourth Corps will furnish the infantry force. General Paine is under your orders, and General Ames will be ordered to report to you in person immediately.
You will confer with these officers and arrange details; instruct them to select their best men, making your force about sixty-five hundred men. The chief of artillery in conference with you will designate the artillery to be taken. The horses of the batteries, except one horse for each officer and chief of piece, will be left. Take one set of wheel harness. Fifty men of the Massachusetts cavalry will be ordered to report to you. Forty ambulances (two horse), with the necessary medical stores, have been selected for the expedition, which will be distributed on at least two boats. Take sixty rounds of ammunition for the men, one hundred rounds in boxes, to be distributed through the fleet. If your division trains do not furnish the necessary amount, the balance required will be furnished by the chief of ordnance at the point of. embarkation. Three hundred rounds of artillery ammunition per gun will be taken. So much of it as is not contained in limber boxes and caissons will be loaded in boxes at the point of embarkation. Let each regiment draw and take with it on transport five days rations, three days cooked meats; twenty days additional will be taken in at Fortress Monroe, distributing it through the fleet. Field rations only will be taken. Two pack-mules for division and brigade headquarters will be allowed. Mounted officers will take but one horse for personal use.
The chief quartermaster has been instructed to furnish one hundred and fifty mule harnesses. It is expected to obtain the animals from the enemy's country. The chief quartermaster will also furnish a party of wharf builders and a small amount of material for landing, etc. Thirty launches will be taken on board at Fortress Monroe. The chief signal officer has been instructed to order signal officers and men to report to you. Lieutenant Parson, with a company of engineer soldiers, will report to you. Five hundred shovels, two hundred and fifty axes, and one hundred picks have been prepared. It is expected that the necessary transportation will be ready to-morrow at Deep Bottom. [782]
You will report in person to the major-general commanding for further instructions.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
John W. Turner, Brigadier-General and Chief of Staff

[Indorsement.]
Respectfully forwarded to Lieutenant-General Grant for his information, and with the earnest request that he will make any suggestion that may occur to him in aid of the enterprise.
Benj. F. Butler, Major-General Commanding.

On the same day I received the first written instructions from General Grant as follows:--

headquarters armies of the United States, City Point, Dec. 6, 1864.
Benj. F. Butler, Major-General Commanding:
General:--The first object of the expedition under General Weitzel is to close to the enemy the port of Wilmington. If successful in this, the second will be the capture of Wilmington itself. There are reasonable grounds to hope for success if advantage can be taken of the absence of a great part of the enemy's forces now looking after Sherman in Georgia. The directions you have given for the number and equipment of the expedition are all right, except in the unimportant one of where they embark and the amount of intrenching tools to be taken. The object of the expedition will be gained on effecting a landing on the mainland between Cape Fear River and the Atlantic, north of the north entrance to the river. Should such landing be effected, whether the enemy hold Fort Fisher or the batteries guarding the entrance to the river there, the troops should intrench themselves, and by co-operation with the navy effect the reduction and capture of those places. These in our hands, the navy could enter the harbor, and the port of Wilmington would be sealed. Should Fort Fisher and the point of land on which it is built fall into the hands of our troops immediately on landing, it will be worth the attempt to capture Wilmington by a forced march and surprise.
If time is consumed in gaining the first object of the expedition, the second will become a matter of after consideration. The details for the execution are intrusted to you and the officers immediately in command [783] of the troops. Should the troops under General Weitzel fail to effect a landing at or near Fort Fisher, they will be returned to the army operating against Richmond without delay.
U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.

By personal arrangement with Grant at City Point at his headquarters, as I went down the river on my way to Fortress Monroe to make final preparations for the expedition, I was to go in its command for a reason which was agreed upon between us in the consultation. The reason was this, that General Weitzel, while a very able general, was quite a young man, and I was very anxious to see this powder expedition go on and succeed, for it was a very grave one.

“I think,” said I, “I had better go with the expedition so as to take the responsibility off General Weitzel, as I am an older officer.”

To this General Grant assented.

“ We shall want,” I continued, “an intelligent report of the work around Wilmington, and of the effect of this expedition. Give me your best engineer officer for that purpose. Give me Comstock.”

“ Certainly, General,” he replied, “and any other of my staff that you think will aid you, for we are not doing anything here.”

General Grant immediately ordered Colonel Comstock to report to me, and in obedience to that order Comstock went down to Fortress Monroe with me on my boat that evening (the 8th). He was with me all the time, and made a report upon the action of the experiment.

It was further understood that I was to stay until General Weitzel successfully effected a landing ; and then I was to determine whether there should be a dash made on Wilmington, and go as far as that if necessary, and then come back to my command of the Army of the James. In consequence of this arrangement I took almost my whole staff with me, and also my horses and other means of moving across the country. I went to Fortress Monroe on the evening of the 8th of December. The transportation for the expedition was to be furnished by General Ingalls, General Grant's chief quartermaster.

On the 6th I had moved the troops for this expedition out of the trenches, and got them ready to embark. I fix the date by a telegram from General Terry to General Turner, my chief of staff.¹² [784]

On the same day I received a telegram requiring me to mass the troops that I had gathered for the expedition, and to stand ready to aid General Grant in a movement that he proposed to make, and to blow out Dutch Gap Canal.¹³ I answered at once that orders had been given to carry out these instructions.

On the 7th of December my chief of staff received a telegram from my quartermaster, Colonel Dodge, that he could furnish certain meagre transportation.¹⁴ This showed me that the transportation furnished by General Grant's quartermaster was deficient, for four of the largest boats were behind on that date, and it will also show who, if anybody in the army, was delaying the expedition at that time. My troops were ready on the 6th.

On the 7th, also, I received the following from General Grant in relation to the instructions I had issued, a copy of which had been forwarded to him for his approval:--

headquarters armies of the U. S., City Point, Va., Dec. 7, 1864.
Major-General B. F. Butler, Commanding Army of the James:
I had sent you a cipher despatch before receiving your instructions to General Weitzel. I think it advisable that all embarkation should take place at Bermuda. The number of intrenching tools I think should be increased three or four times.
U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.

The number of intrenching tools was increased. To get additional transportation I sent word to Colonel Dodge that the Baltic was at Annapolis, and could be had.¹⁵ That fact I knew because the Baltic had reported to me at Annapolis with released prisoners. Receiving information from Colonel Dodge in the evening of December 7, that he was now fully prepared to ship the troops, I telegraphed General Grant that General Weitzel's command was encamped at Signal Tower awaiting orders, and that Porter would be ready the next day.¹⁶ On the same day I received a despatch from General Grant instructing me to let Weitzel get off as soon as possible, and stating that he did not want the navy to wait an hour.¹⁷ I transmitted [785] that order to General Weitzel on the date of its receipt,¹⁸ and on the 8th of December at 9.15 A. M. I received a telegram from him stating that he was at Bermuda embarking his troops.¹⁹ We took out one steamer at Fortress Monroe to make out our complement of transportation.

On the night of the 8th of December, I took Lieutenant-Colonel Comstock on board my boat, shook hands with General Grant, and said: “Now, we will get off as soon as we can.” I went down the river and met Admiral Porter on the morning of the 9th, stating that we were ready to proceed. He said that the powder vessel was not quite ready, but it would be ready directly; and he said that at any rate it would not be advisable to go to sea in the state of the weather then.

On Saturday afternoon, December 10, I asked Colonel Comstock and General Weitzel to go with me to Norfolk to see Admiral Porter on board his flag-ship. The conversation with Porter related mostly to the powder-boat and the time when it would be ready. Both Comstock and myself told Porter that haste was necessary, and that probably it would be better to dispense with the powder vessels rather than to delay and give the enemy a chance to send down reinforcements; that the enemy, having made a reconnoissance of my position that morning, might have discovered that some of our troops had been withdrawn, and knowing that the expedition had been contemplated would probably guess its destination. The admiral said he was hurrying up the putting of the powder on board as much as he could. We then discussed the weather, which looked unfavorable, and I telegraphed General Grant that the army was ready, and was waiting for the navy.²⁰

On the next Monday evening the fleet not having yet sailed, I ordered nearly all the transports to move up Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac River and Matthias Point, and then if they could, to return in the night-time and anchor off Cape Henry. They were started at 3 o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the 13th. We knew the enemy continually kept scouts in Northumberland County, Va., at the mouth of the Potomac, to report every transport that passed up and down the bay, in fact, everything that occurred there. We had frequently seen their reports in the Richmond papers. I ordered the [786] fleet to go up the bay that they might be reported to the enemy as going up the Potomac. Then, after dark, they were to come down the bay again with all lights put out, and thus deceive the enemy as to our movements.

Early on the morning of Wednesday, the 14th, a steamer came in from the Department of the South and reported the sea to be very smooth outside. We at once started the transports already anchored off Cape Henry, and put out to sea. There was no vessel of Admiral Porter's in Hampton Roads when we left.²¹ It was arranged that we should meet the naval fleet twenty-five miles off New Inlet.²² But in order not to arouse any suspicion in regard to Wilmington, and in order that, if it became necessary, we might land at Masonboroa Inlet, which is eighteen miles above Fort Fisher, my fleet was ordered to rendezvous and did rendezvous off Masonboroa Inlet, but far out at sea that they might not be seen. Admiral Porter was notified of this, so that he understood it.

My transport fleet arrived off Masonboroa Inlet the night of Thursday, the 15th of December. The time of sailing had been so arranged that the vessels should sail only so fast, in order that all might get there together, and should not get there in daylight. This was so that it would not be possible for them to be seen by any blockade runner or fishing vessel that might be out there. My own ship being faster than the rest, I went forward eighteen miles down the coast, and twenty-five miles off the land, in order to meet Admiral Porter, who, I supposed, was with his fleet. He had said to me that it would take twelve hours for him to go into Beaufort and get ammunition for his monitors and other vessels, but having had some experience in the delays of naval operations, I allowed him to have thirty-six hours start.

I reached the blockading fleet off Fort Fisher between six and seven o'clock on the evening of the 15th (Thursday). I inquired if [787] Admiral Porter had been seen, and was told that he had not. I consulted a few minutes with the officer in charge, and then stood twenty-five miles out to sea, and found the Minnesota and some of the large vessels out there. I spoke them and inquired if they knew where Admiral Porter was. They said they did not, but supposed he was at Beaufort; that they could not get in the harbor of Beaufort, and therefore had come along. Expecting him momentarily, I did not come to anchor, but steamed under what steamboat men call “one bell,” --steamed slowly around all that night.

On the evening of the 16th, not seeing Admiral Porter, I stood in towards land with the blockading fleet, my transport fleet still remaining at Masonboroa Inlet, with the exception of my own vessel and a little boat for a tender. I waited that day, which was very fine, and waited also the next day. The sea was so smooth that I lowered my gig and took a row for pleasure. There was not wind enough to fill the sail of a yawl boat that was let down.

I sent General Weitzel and Colonel Comstock on the Chamberlain to make a reconnoissance of the fort, and they ran in so as to draw the fire.

We waited there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Sunday morning (the 18th) I received a letter from Admiral Porter dated the 16th of December, in which he said that he expected to leave for the rendezvous on the 17th, and that if the weather permitted he expected to blow up the powder vessel on the night of the 18th. He also informed me that it had been suggested to him by some of the naval engineers that even at twenty-five miles the explosion might affect the boilers of the steamers and make them explode if heavy steam was carried, and advised that before the explosion took place the fires be drawn and the steam allowed to run down as low as possible.²³

We waited until Sunday night before Admiral Porter made his appearance. I ran out to meet him and was informed by him that the powder vessel Louisiana, which he said was “as complete as human ingenuity could make her,” ²⁴ having on board two hundred and thirty-five tons of powder,²⁵ all he could get, had gone to attempt the explosion, and that he proposed to stand in the [788]

Powder-boat “Louisiana” at Fort Fisher.

moment of the explosion, and open fire to prevent the enemy repairing damages.

Upon the receipt of the letter from Admiral Porter containing that information, it being then eight o'clock at night, and he having said that he would send the powder-boat in with orders to have it exploded, I immediately sent General Weitzel and Colonel Comstock on board the Malvern to represent to the admiral that there would be no use in exploding the powder-boat if the troops could not land.²⁶ For whatever damage that explosion might do the enemy would have time to repair, and, as we could not land, the advantage of the powder vessel would be lost entirely. As all of us would have to stand off during the northeasterly gale which he foresaw, it would clearly be best not to explode the powder-boat at that time.²⁷

When Comstock and Weitzel returned they reported to me that the admiral had agreed with me, and had sent his fast sailing tug to countermand the orders to [789] the powder vessels. My officers reported that they had great difficulty in getting on board the admiral's vessel on account of the sea being so rough.

We remained there the night of Sunday. On Monday morning (the 19th) Admiral Porter signalled to me that as it was rough we could not land, and he proposed to exercise his fleet. He got his fleet in line of battle by divisions, and sailed all about, I with my ship following the flag-ship. We all sailed within sight of Fort Fisher. That I believed was the first intimation the enemy had that we were off the coast. I am confirmed in my opinion because Lieutenant R. T Chapman, commanding the rebel battery Buchanan, which was the mound battery just below Fort Fisher, begins his report to the Confederate authorities on the 29th of December, 1864, in these words: “I reported to you on the 20th inst. that the enemy had arrived off this place.” When we were exercising the fleet it did go within sight of the mound battery, and it was remarked on the squadron that if we could see them they of course could see us.

On the evening of Monday the 19th, the wind hauled round to the northeast, and it was very evident that there could be no landing of troops at that time. I had taken coal for ten days on the transport vessels, all they could carry. As my flag-ship was running light I could put a hundred tons of coal as ballast in her hold. I had taken ten days water. Most of the vessels, however, had water condensers with which we could supply ourselves in case of necessity. Having waited in readiness from the 9th of December to the 20th, my ten days supplies were getting rather short. By Admiral Porter's direction we were to rendezvous under Cape Lookout or in Beaufort Harbor, as many of our vessels as the depth of water would permit to go in.

As I saw that we could do nothing for three or four days, I sent my tender to the fleet at Masonboroa Inlet with a message that all that could do so should go into Beaufort Harbor, which was between sixty and seventy miles from Fort Fisher, and renew their coal and water. I proceeded to Beaufort to superintend that matter because the water was to be brought from a distance of some fifteen miles, which involved great loss of labor and time, not having any railroad facilities. [790]

Admiral Porter says in his report that I had a bad class of transports.²⁸ If it was so they were such as were furnished me by General Grant's quartermaster. But that statement is not true. They were transports of an excellent class, as is shown by the fact that they rode out, without the loss of a man, one of the most considerable gales that ever occurred on the coast.

On the 20th of December, while lying off Beaufort, I sent to General Grant a report detailing the movements and operations up to that time.²⁹

I intended to go out of port the afternoon I sent off that report, but it blew very strongly and continued to blow very hard until Tuesday night, when it held up a little.

I then sent Capt. H. C. Clarke of my staff to Admiral Porter, who was lying under Cape Lookout, to say to him that I would be finished coaling the vessels and be down there Saturday night ready to commence the attack on Sunday morning, when I hoped the sea would be smooth. Captain Clarke went down, but could not return until the next day, when he reported to me that he had arrived off Beaufort on his return during the night before, but that it was so rough as to be impossible for him to get his boat in, although it was a very good light-draft steamer.

He had seen Admiral Porter, who had told him to say to me that he would explode the powder vessels at one o'clock that Thursday night. Captain Clarke said to him that it would be impossible for me to get there with the land force because the vessels were not coaled, although they were doing the best they could, but that he would go right back and inform me. He left Admiral Porter at one o'clock on the afternoon of Friday to come back but did not reach me until the next morning for the reasons aforesaid.

Having this information that the powder-boat was to have been exploded at one o'clock the night before,--and at the time I received the information it had been exploded,--I started immediately for Fort Fisher, ordering the transport fleet to follow me, each vessel as fast as it got coaled. Most of them got off directly.

I got down near Fort Fisher between four and five o'clock, and found the fleet engaging the enemy and bombarding the fort. I remained there in sight until the signal was made to cease firing, [791] when the admiral's ship ran out some four or five miles and came to anchor. I ran alongside of her and anchored, and sent Lieutenant DeKay of my staff on board to say that General Weitzel would be on board that night to arrange a plan of attack the next morning, if the admiral thought it advisable to attack. Admiral Porter sent back word that he was very tired that night, but if I would send General Weitzel and Colonel Comstock on board in the morning he would see them at as early an hour as I chose to send them. I sent General Weitzel as he was to command the troops on shore, and I proposed that all the minor details, corresponding signals and all that, should be arranged between Admiral Porter and Weitzel so that there should be no mistake. And, besides, I supposed that Colonel Comstock would go with me to suggest anything that might occur to him, he being a member of General Grant's staff.

At half past 6 on the morning of Sunday, General Weitzel repaired on board the Malvern, the flag-ship, and there he had a conversation with Admiral Porter.

I sent Admiral Porter a letter in answer to that conversation in which I suggested that we should go in as early as eight o'clock in the morning.

It was arranged that the naval fleet should silence the Flag Pond Hill and Half Moon batteries, and that we should then land near them.

I directed General Weitzel and Colonel Comstock to urge upon Admiral Porter to run by the fort into Cape Fear River, but Porter said he could not do it because there was not enough water. Now, we had four vessels, blockade runners, which had been caught while trying to run out of the port of Wilmington. They had been captured and turned into gunboats, and it might be supposed that they could get into a place where there was sufficient water to permit them to come out. Yet Porter reported that the navy could not run in there because they had no light draft vessels.

The vessels of the navy lay in a semi-circle around Fort Fisher. Twelve vessels lay up above trying to silence the batteries at Pond Hill and Half Moon, which they did not do except temporarily. These same batteries fired at me afterwards while I lay within six hundred yards superintending the landing of troops. [792]

I ask the reader to take into consideration the difference between a silent fort and a silenced one. Fortress Monroe is silent to-day, but it is far from being silenced. From Fort Fisher and the batteries the enemy fired occasional shots all the forenoon. It is fair to say that when the Brooklyn was in near the Flag Pond Hill battery she did some splendid shooting and the enemy concluded not to fire a great deal.

We stood in, the transport fleet lying each side of me. I lay within eight hundred yards of the shore when we commenced debarking the troops. The moment we got on shore skirmishers were to advance and take possession of some woods. This they did, and then the small party moved down upon Flag Pond Hill battery. The enemy held out a white flag as our skirmishers came up, and the navy sent in boats and took the prisoners off.³⁰ Among them were sixty-five prisoners from the Seventeenth North Carolina, a regiment which lay before my line when I left before Richmond. Porter reports that no land reinforcements got there, and yet we captured and brought back with us sixty-five men of a rebel regiment which I left at Richmond.

When we landed, the fort was entirely silent, with the exception of a gun fired now and then at some small navy boats which were apparently dragging for torpedoes or taking soundings.

My plan was: First to land five hundred men and reconnoitre, and if it was found that they could hold the landing for the others, then to land force enough to assault the place, and then, if it was possible, to land the rest of the men and what material I had, and intrench. The first five hundred men were easily landed, and then the boats were sent back and more put on shore as fast as possible.³¹

As soon as the landing was in good progress, I ran down to a point within five hundred yards of Fort Fisher, in General Graham's army boat, “Chamberlain,” and at the right of where the monitors lay that were firing upon the fort. I could run in nearer than they could because my vessel was of lighter draft. I there met General Weitzel returning from a reconnoissance. He stated to me that he had been out to the front line, and had seen Fort Fisher, [793]

Map of Fort Fisher.

[794] and that one of his best officers had been out on the picket line. As a defensive work the fort was uninjured. Its guns were all mounted on the land face, and they had seventeen guns mounted up the beach. “His picket line,” he said, “was crouched under the counterscarp of a ditch, which was so high that it covered them.” General Weitzel's report to me has since received confirmation from the report of Major-General Whiting, of the rebel service,³² who reported that “during the day the enemy landed a large land force, and at half past 4 advanced a line of skirmishers to the left flank of the sand curtain.” That is, our men advanced up and crouched under the sand bank which formed the counterscarp of the ditch, which was high enough to protect them from the fire of the fort. There they could lie exposed only to the fire of the navy which was enfilading them,--and we lost ten of our men by that fire from our gun-boats.

General Weitzel further stated that he thought it was impossible to assault the fort successfully, and that it would be murder to make such attack upon the fort, and gave his reasons, which were entirely satisfactory to me. But being unwilling to abandon the enterprise without trying, and seeing, from the state of the weather, that it must be an assault or nothing, I said to Colonel Comstock, who was on board with me: “Jump into a boat with General Weitzel, pull ashore and examine with him and report to me if an assault is feasible; to me it does not look so, but I am unwilling to give up.” ³³

They went on shore. The surf had begun to rise so that they got very wet in landing.

At the same time Brigadier-General Graham, reporting to me, said: “General, you have either to provide for those troops to-night on shore in some way, or get them off, because it is getting so rough that we cannot land much longer.”

General Graham had been a naval officer for many years, but was then in the service of the army commanding the naval brigade. I reflected a moment before determining the course of action. A storm was coming on; the surf was rolling in; the barometer had fallen a half an inch. If we got the men on shore, it might be, and probably would be, a week before we could send any provisions to them. [795]

In the meantime a deserter from the Sixty-Second North Carolina, whom I had captured once before at Hatteras in 1861, having received good treatment from me, came in. He said that they had marched down from Richmond, and that Kirkland's brigade and one other were already down there; and that Hoke was on his way with large reinforcements and had arrived by land the night before at Wilmington, which was about twenty-one or twenty-two miles off.

At that time our skirmishers advanced upon a small body of men who were between Flag Pond Hill battery and the pond. They could not get away because it was a marsh towards the river; and they could not go by the pond and up the beach because there was an opening from the pond into the sea. They could not get down to the fort because we were between them and the fort. Therefore Major Reece, their commander, five officers, and two hundred and eighteen men surrendered. Major Reece was brought to me, and from him I learned that he had marched from Bellville near the Weldon road, where General Warren of Grant's army had made his attack, after they had heard we were at Wilmington. He said that that morning as many of his regiment had been put into the bomb-proofs as they would hold, in addition to the garrison which was there before. As the bomb-proofs were not capable of accommodating his other two hundred and eighteen men, they had marched up the beach out of the way of the fire of the navy. I also learned from him that he had been in the fort that morning, and that it had lost but two men killed from the bombardment, and that there was but one gun on the land face dismounted. Reece seemed to be very communicative, and willing to tell us all he knew.

I then inquired of him where he was the night before last. He said he was lying two miles and a half up the beach. I asked him if he had heard the powder vessel explode. He said he did not know what it was, but supposed a boat had blown up; that it jumped him and his men who were lying on the ground about like pop-corn in a popper, to use his expression.

I then determined upon my course of action, bearing in mind the fact that a storm was coming on, and knowing that, if it became necessary to effect a landing again, we could do it any day, in a smooth sea, in two hours without the loss of a man. I thought it a greatly less risk waiting with the men on board the transports than [796] to attempt to get them on shore and have them intrench there during the night in the coming storm.

I knew very well, for I had studied them very carefully, that my instructions said that we were to blockade Cape Fear River by landing and intrenching there. But finding that the channel of the river was a mile and a half from any spot of ground where I could possibly plant a gun, I was not very hopeful of preventing, with my field guns, blockaders running by. I had obtained information which satisfied me that Hoke's division was there, and when they were all there with the garrisons and reserves that had been thrown in, there would be at least twice as many as I had on shore. Hoke's division alone was about six thousand men, and I had between twenty-one hundred and twenty-three hundred men landed. I had under my command sixty-five hundred men in all. It was evidently impossible to do anything further at that time in the way of landing. But troops can be got off when it is not possible to land them and their supplies. Orders were, therefore, given to get the troops off, and everything was done that could be done to get them away. General Weitzel and Colonel Comstock agreed with me.³⁴

Before starting upon this reconnoissance Admiral Porter had sailed by my boat in his flag-ship, and with his speaking trumpet hailed me in these words:--

“ How do you do, General?”

“Very well, I thank you,” I answered.

“How many troops are you going to land?”

“All I can,” said I,--for the navy had agreed to furnish me with the means of landing.

“There is not a rebel within five miles of the fort,” said the admiral. “You have nothing to do but to land and take possession of it.”

I had a different opinion, and avowed it. I said to those around me: “I think there is a man on shore by the name of Weitzel who will find out if it is so.”

That was the first personal communication I had with Admiral Porter after leaving Hampton Roads.

The words were hardly out of Admiral Porter's mouth, and his vessel had not got many lengths from me, when the rebel skirmishers [797] opened on ours, and before an hour's time we had captured the two hundred and eighteen men who had not time to march one mile, and who denied having marched at all within that time,--the over-plus men that could not be put in the bomb-proofs of the fort.

I ran out to the Malvern, for the fleet had come to anchor, and asked Admiral Porter what could be done. He informed me that he had exhausted his ammunition, and that he must go to Beaufort to replenish. As it took him four days to put in his ammunition at a time when I supposed his vessels were already nearly full, I thought it would take him quite as long to fill them when they were quite empty. Now Beaufort was some seventy miles off, and as it would take him at least four days to go there and back, he would be absent certainly a week.

The gale was increasing, and by ten o'clock the sea got so high that I could get off no more men that night with my utmost efforts. In the morning my vessel was rolling so that no man not a sailor could stand on deck, and it was impossible for the navy to come in or open fire upon the fort even if they had had ammunition,--and it will be seen by looking at the report and letter that many of his vessels were actually out of the larger kinds of ammunition. The fleet could do nothing so long as the wind remained as it was then, which was nearly southwest, and if it should shift to the easterly or northeasterly they would be driven on shore. Consequently they must get an offing or be driven on shore. For if they waited there, rolling as the sea was rolling my ship, the fire of the fleet would have amounted to nothing, for under such circumstances their shot would not, with any certainty, have hit a county. But when the fleet retired my men would have no heavy guns to protect them, and would be exposed to attack by large numbers on the peninsula. They might possibly intrench against these, but they would also be exposed to the fire of the heavy guns of the fort, of which there were still sixteen uninjured and bearing directly up the beach. The beach at that point was not more than a third of a mile wide, and the wind of the storm would not affect the accuracy of the enemy's fire from the fort Besides, the drenching rains of the storm would cause suffering and sickness among the unprotected men, as their tents had not been and could not be got on shore, and not even their medical stores had been landed. The fact that as [798] soon as the fire from our vessels ceased there were plenty of men with which to repel an attack on the fort, is confirmed by the following sentence which I take from General Whiting's report above referred to: “The garrison, however, at the proper moment when the fire of the navy slackened to allow the approach of the enemy's land force, drove them off with artillery fire and musketry.”

General Whiting shows exactly what my report³⁵ shows, and what the report of General Weitzel shows, that our troops were met with grape and musketry the moment the fire of the navy slackened. General Whiting also says: “A heavy storm set in and the garrisons were much exposed, as they were under arms all night.”

At eleven o'clock the next day I informed Admiral Porter that in my judgment there was nothing to be done but to go to Fortress Monroe, and I went there. Before I got away from the coast of North Carolina I passed all the heavier vessels of the squadron, such as the Wabash, the Colorado, and the Ironsides, going up to Beaufort to get ammunition.

Upon my arrival at Fortress Monroe I telegraphed³⁶ to General Grant a report of what had been done.

The considerations that determined my mind against remaining on the beach near Fort Fisher were these: I was by no means unmindful of the instructions of the lieutenant-general. He had directed me that if I had fully got my men ashore, not if I had gotten only a portion of them, I was to remain. But a landing requires something more than to have twenty-five hundred men out of sixty-five hundred on a beach with nothing but forty rounds of ammunition in the cartridge boxes, and with all their supplies driven off in the storm. I did not think that that was “landing” within my instructions, and, therefore, I deemed it much better for the country that I should withdraw as I did; it was much less risk, and much better for the future. Porter had informed me that he could not get up the river inside because there was but six feet of water. But the rebels could come down in that depth of water and thence operate against Fort Fisher; and they could come prepared to remain there if I withdrew my forces — and the fact that the fleet had returned to Beaufort to stay a week to replenish would have shown the enemy that the expedition had been abandoned. If I [799] remained there they would keep the forces concentrated at that point; and if I was driven away by the storm coming up, then I should lose the men I had landed.

The failure of the expedition was owing to the delay of the navy in Beaufort; the exploding of the powder-boat before the troops got there to take advantage of the effect of it, whatever it was; the refusal of Admiral Porter to run by the fort, and the failure of the bombardment to silence the fire of the fort on the land front.

Porter had been told to run by the forts with a portion of his fleet and go into the river. Then we were to supply him across the strip of land upon which some of our men were landed, and we could have done this marsh or no marsh between us and the river. With the navy in the river, we could have remained on the beach, because we should have had somebody to aid us when the sea was so rough that the fleet could not aid us from the outside. The part of the fleet lying in the river, if he had run by the fort, could have aided us, notwithstanding the weather. The enemy had gunboats in the river, and without having any part of the fleet inside we were more liable to be shelled by them in smooth water, if they retained control of the river, than we were to be protected by the navy from the front in rough water.

One reason given by the admiral for not running by was that he would lose his gunboats by torpedoes. I never heard that there were torpedoes in the channel of the river, nor could I conceive how there could be with blockaders going to and coming from Wilmington, drawing all the water there was in the channel without their running against them.

There was never any excuse given for his delay at Beaufort. That delay gave time for the enemy to meet our whole expedition.

Porter's performance in exploding the powder-boat before two o'clock in the night, when he and his fleet were so far away that they could not get back until twelve o'clock the next day, was also fatal to anything like a surprise.

I think it is my duty to myself and to the country to detail the facts in regard to the powder-boat. They are few and simple. I have stated before that I had learned the particulars of several explosions which showed that large masses of powder, when exploded, produced an effect upon the surrounding earth, atmosphere, [800] and buildings of all sorts, in kind with an explosion of a cannon, in degree according to the mass exploded, and to the instantaneousness of the ignition of the explosive.

I had never supposed, and I do not now suppose, that the explosion of any mass of a size that could be conveyed there to be exploded within two or three hundred yards of Fort Fisher, would blow down its bastions, many feet thick of earth, or blow down its bomb-proofs, some of them ten or twelve feet of earth, or be likely to dismantle any of its cannon en barbette. Nor did I believe that the proper explosion could be got from that powder from a vessel anchored in thirty-six feet of water, because the explosion of the first ton would stave the vessel all to pieces, or at least blow all the rest of the powder out of it into the sea to be lost. My proposition to the Navy Department contemplated using but one hundred tons of powder. But they immediately suggested more to the amount of three hundred tons, to make it certain, although I believe, properly exploded, one hundred tons would have done all that was required. My plan was that this one hundred tons of powder should be put into a light-draught steamer, and arranged and packed in such a way that either by electrical or other apparatus fire could be communicated all through the vessel into every part of the mass of powder at one and nearly the same instant; that that vessel should be run ashore; that time fuses or other means of calculating the time necessary for the explosion should be put in operation, and that with the vessel hard and fast on shore so that none of the powder substantially could go down into the water until it had time to take fire, the whole mass should explode. The effect that I expected from that was that the gases from the burning powder would so disturb the air as to render it impossible for men to breathe within two hundred yards; that the magazines of the fort would be burst in and possibly the magazines themselves be exploded; that by the enormous missiles that would be set in motion, and by the concussion, many men would be killed, and if the explosion were to be followed immediately by an attack of even a small number of effective men, the fort could be captured.

If this experiment had been carried out with anything of the intelligence with which the plans of it were devised,--for it was turned over to the experts and ordnance officers of the navy — there [801] would have been no doubt of its success. If it had been only partially successful, it would have had this effect, namely, that no garrison could be kept in a fort where a small naval vessel in the darkness of the night could be run up under it and explode. It would be less expensive to operate on forts in this way than with expeditions for bombardments which might cost millions.

I knew of and acknowledge one great difficulty which those who actually took charge of the preparation of the powder-boat did not seem to appreciate as I did,--that it is very difficult to explode a large mass of army or navy cannon powder without a considerable delay. But if time enough can be had in which the powder may become fully ignited, then it has rapid but not instantaneous explosive force.

Now, I suppose it is not known to many that the cannon powder in the large guns of the army and navy is in the form of square blocks, each from three-quarters of an inch to an inch every way; and that, before any explosive force can be had from it, there must be time given for the blocks to burn. The powder supply for the powder-boat was of that character, and some that was used was admitted to have been damaged powder. But that was all well enough if it had been given time enough to burn. The problem was so to arrange matters that first every portion of the powder in mass should be set fire to at the same instant, and, secondly, after the vessel was run ashore time should be given before the match was applied to the powder to allow the crew having the vessel in charge to get off in their boats.

At a meeting of naval experts at Fortress Monroe at which I was present it was arranged to use a line of fuse known as the Gomez fuse, of which we had samples. This particular kind of fuse is nothing more than an India rubber tube or case of any required shape filled inside with fulminating powder, like in its properties to that used in percussion caps, which burns with great quickness and force, and after once being ignited cannot be extinguished until the mass has been burned out. So quickly does the fire travel through the tube or case that it will go a mile in four seconds. The experiment was tried, a small Gomez fuse one hundred feet long being coiled up in a tub of water, and its two ends brought over the side. An accurate stop watch could not indicate any lapse of time between [802] the moment when the fire was communicated to one end of the tube, and the rush of the fire out of the other end, after having passed through the whole length of the fuse The explosion of the fulminate in the tube bursts it at every point along its whole length as it passes through.

It was, therefore, arranged and ordered that the powder should be stored in the boat on the decks above the hold, and the higher the better, and that small boxes full of fine powder should be put in the top of each barrel or bag through the whole mass of the powder, and that from the cabin, where it was to be set on fire, Gomez fuses should be run through all these boxes of fine powder so placed. By this means every box of powder would be exploded at substantially the same instant of time. It was also arranged that all the fuses should start from the cabin where the ends were to be placed in a receptacle filled with powder. When this powder in the receptacle should be fired, it would instantly set fire to the whole mass. The Gomez fuse to be used for this purpose was bought and furnished.

Clockwork devised and ordered to be used to explode the powder-boat Louisiana, but not used for that purpose.

To permit time for the crew to escape an ingenious gentleman devised an apparatus from each of three marine clocks. These were to be set running, in communication with devices, a drawing of which is given, which would drop through a tube, at any time to which the clock should be adjusted, a two-pound shot upon a percussion cap fixed to a nipple at the lower end of the tube. By the fall of the shot the cap would be exploded and fire communicated to the powder in the aforementioned receptacle where the ends of the [803] several fuses were gathered together. A number of experiments were made with this clockwork device, and they worked perfectly. Three sets of apparatus were to be taken lest some disorder of the machinery of one might hinder the proper discharge of the powder. In case they all should fail from any unforeseen contingency, then, in order to prevent this quantity of powder from falling into the hands of the enemy, a fire was to be built on the forecastle of the vessel, which, by its burning, should at last reach and destroy the powder. But this was to be done, not with any expectation that it would cause a proper explosion, but only as a means of the destruction of the powder without beneficial results.³⁷

It was vitally necessary to any success of the explosion that the boat should be in substantial contact with the earth in order to give the explosion effect. It is well known that when a torpedo is exploded in the water with a few feet of water as a cushion between it and the vessel to be destroyed, the effect will be to take from the explosion substantially all its destructive force, and the vessel by that means will escape uninjured.

I have stated with care what was to be done to render this explosion a success. Now, what was done and what left undone?

First, there were but two hundred and fifteen tons of powder put aboard instead of three hundred tons, the amount relied upon.

Second, the illustration given will show the storage of powder as it was ordered to be made, and as it was not made. The hold was to be left empty. The whole of the deck-house was to be filled, and the fuses laid and connected with candles which were to burn a certain time, of which six were prepared. The whole of the powder was to be put as high up as practicable, so as to be as far from the water as possible.

Third, the Gomez fuses were not used at all, but were left hanging up in coils in the cabin at the time of the explosion.

Fourth, the clockwork devices for exploding the powder were not used.

Fifth, the fire was not even built on the forecastle or the forward part of the deck, as it was proposed to be and ought to have been built, but was built in the stern under the cabin of the vessel.

Sixth, the vessel was not run on shore at all, so that it could not sink by the explosion in the water, and the powder drowned out, [804] because of course if the vessel was floating when the explosion took place it would be instantly sunk down into the water. The vessel was not put opposite to the fort, but quite three quarters of a mile³⁸ above the upper bastion, so that the direct force of the explosion was not felt on the face of the fort.

No accurate survey was made of the distance from the angle of the fort to the powder-boat.

Maj. Thomas Lincoln Casey, of the engineer corps, made a report concerning the powder-boat, but he does not give its distance from the fort. Captain King, in his report on torpedoes, only copies Casey.

General Whiting and Colonel Lamb agree about the distance of the powder-boat from the fort. The fact that some light wooden buildings near the corner of the fort were not destroyed by the explosion shows either that a very small amount of powder exploded, or that the boat was too far distant to do any damage.

As I have said, the clockwork was not started, the fuse was not ignited, and the fire was not lighted in the forecastle, as was directed to be done. On the contrary, it was built under the cabin, and the men and officers left in the yawl and rowed to the Wilderness which was waiting them. They got on board the Wilderness at precisely twelve o'clock. She immediately started at full speed and went some twelve miles out to sea. There they waited for the explosion to take place, which happened at 1.45 A. M. If, as Rhind says, the clockwork was set and the fuses lighted and timed at one hour and a half, the vessel would have exploded at that moment, but it is agreed that it did not explode until twenty-two minutes later. But the explosion did not occur until the after part of the vessel was enveloped in flames.

To do him justice I append so much of Captain Rhind's report as relates to this part of the matter.³⁹ In his letter, called for by the Ordnance Department of the Navy, he says that the Gomez fuse had not been put into that part of the powder which had been held at Craney Island, Fortress Monroe; that he was ordered to put fuse in, but did not because it could not be done without breaking out the cargo which he did not do.⁴⁰ He says he put the fuses in the part which he loaded at Beaufort — a small portion only,--but it could [805] not have been done. And even if it were done and the fuses connected with the clocks, they were not the means of exploding the powder, for he admits that the clocks did not set off the powder.

The failure to start the fire on the forecastle, as he was ordered to do, and the building it under the cabin, where the flames bursting out in the after part of the vessel show it was built, made a very great difference in the result. By looking at the diagram of the vessel and observing the manner in which the powder was loaded, it will be seen that between the after part of the vessel and the powder was the furnace and machinery. This was in a room which, of course, was made fire-proof, and the fire from the cabin had to burn through this before it could reach the powder, which the diagram shows was

Diagram of the powder-boat Louisiana.

protected from the side of the fire-room. There was no protection between the woodwork of the fore part of the vessel and the powder. She was anchored head towards the shore, and fastened in that position by an anchor over the stern at short scope. He did not take even the only means of exploding her which was to be used in the last resource, namely, by a fire on her forecastle. He should, while the vessel was under steam, have turned her and anchored her with her head from the wind, in order to prevent the fire in the forecastle being blown too early along the deck into the powder. The reason of his not having lighted the fire in the forecastle is obvious: he was afraid that if it were lighted there it would burn too fast to [806] let him get away far enough to be safe, Porter having told him that the fleet would not be safe short of twenty-five miles at sea, where he had taken the rest of the fleet. So the powder-boat waited until the fire lighted in the stern had burned over the fire-proof enclosure of the engine-room, and struck the powder between decks. This, as soon as it was ignited, exploded and blew all the rest of the powder directly into the sea as if blown from a cannon, because the powder vessel was an iron one, and the berth deck had been entirely cleared out in order to hold powder. It is as safe to say that not nearly one tenth of the powder on board the boat ever exploded, because the moment the explosion took place all the powder in the hold was driven down into the water, and the little powder above the berth-deck was immediately blown into the air. This powder was in bags, and some of the witnesses say they saw a succession of explosions taking place in the air as if of bags of powder which had been thrown up by the explosion.⁴¹

Rhind admits in his letter to the Ordnance Department--just as Jeffers, who had the matter in charge, testified,--that he was told that the last resort was to explode the powder by building a fire on, the forecastle. The fact that the vessel did not explode with all that powder on board until the fire “lighted under her cabin” had been burning nearly two hours, so that the after part of the vessel was enveloped in flames,⁴² so as to be seen by Rhind when twelve miles off out at sea, shows that none of the arrangements for exploding the vessel had been either put in order or availed of. Therefore, it is plain that the experiment of the powder-boat never has been tried. The whole performance of the navy as carried out was simply an abortion of the weakest kind. Rhind admits that he purposely steered away from the fort lest he might be discovered and the scheme frustrated. How could the enemy have frustrated it if they had seen the boat?

But the fatal defect, setting aside all others, was that the vessel was not run on shore so as to put the powder where it could burn.

The testimony of Colonel Lamb, who was in command of the fort, upon this subject, shows clearly that the vessel was not observed, and if it had been would probably have been taken for a blockade runner. His testimony shows that the explosion was of no consequence. [807] He did little more than wake up. He supposed that some boat had burst her boiler, but he did not even rise from his bed. He says also that nothing in the fort, animate or inanimate, was injured by the explosion.

Porter's admission that he was so afraid that it would explode the boilers of his steamers twenty-five miles away unless their steam was run down,⁴³ shows him as ridiculous in his cowardice as he was false in his statements.

Let me close this matter of the powder-boat by saying that here was another of my enterprises to do a service for the country rendered fruitless because the preparation of it was intrusted to the navy who, through some of its officers, failed utterly to carry it out properly. I was blamed and ridiculed for the powder-boat all over the country, and those who ridiculed me knew no more of the subject than they knew of the events of an unknown world. Thus it will be seen that this experiment was another of Butler's failures through the inefficiency of some of the officers of the navy, as we have already seen was Dutch Gap Canal by the cowardice of another officer of the navy who was afterwards convicted therefor. Yet the experiment was approved to be made by a board of officers detailed as experts by the President and the Secretary of the Navy. They arranged and carried it out. This board was approved by Porter and Grant, and over it I did not and could not exercise the slightest control, even as to indicating the time for the explosion.

By the gallantry of General Terry and his brave troops another expedition which was afterwards sent down was successful in assaulting the fort, I admit most willingly, but this throws no light on the question, and by and by I may consider the motives for sending it down. Sherman with his army had at that time nearly or quite enveloped North Carolina or was proceeding in his victorious march to do so. In less than thirty days he would be behind Wilmington which must of course fall as did Savannah. That would stop the blockade running into Wilmington as effectually as it was done by the expenditure of a large amount of money and the loss of some thousand lives. When I have made this remark before I have been answered: “You set the numbers high; Terry lost only seven hundred killed and wounded in the assault.” [808] That is true, but he lost a good many by sickness and by explosions within the fort after it was captured, the exact number of which I do not find reported. And Porter, also, in a joint unsuccessful assault, lost some hundreds of sailors and marines who were, in the language of General Weitzel, “simply murdered.”

The fact is, that on the first attack after the failure of the powder-boat, Porter did not intend that the attack of the army should succeed.

I know that he says he did, but every act shows he did not, as I propose by a series of quotations from his own reports to demonstrate, and to show that his statements are not at any time to be relied upon.

In regard to the powder-boat, Porter in his report to the Navy Department when the investigation took place, stated that the fire was built on the forecastle,⁴⁴ where it should have been made; but in his first report, of the 26th of December, he said, as was the fact, that the fire was set under the cabin⁴⁵ [in the stern].

When that department investigated the matter through Chief of Ordnance Wise, both Jeffers and Rodman stated that Porter's report of circumstances for the purpose of that investigation was that the fire was set on the forecastle, as the instructions for its explosion required should be done. Nobody but Porter says so, and he contradicts himself, as we have seen; and the action of the fire, as we have also seen, shows that it could not have been so done. The order of Wise shows that this investigation and all the reports should be “confidential.” ⁴⁶ Why so, unless it was intended that the facts should be kept from me? And they were so kept until I managed to have them developed before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Porter was over-anxious that a second attack should be made and therefore he kept up a series of letters and reports to Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, some of which were confidential, begging him to keep the fleet there until more troops could be sent down. To induce the secretary to yield to his desire, he reported the fort as being undefended and incapable of defence, and he threw aspersions upon me for not making the attack, when to do so and to capture the fort was “entirely feasible.” [809]

Let us see Porter's description of the fort, and its capabilities of defence at the first attack. He says:--⁴⁷

There never was a fort that invited soldiers to walk in and take possession more plainly than Fort Fisher. . . We silenced the guns in one hour and fifteen minutes time without the loss of a man [that I have heard of] except by the bursting of our own guns, in the entire fleet. We have shown the weakness of this fort. It can be taken at any moment in one hour's time if the right man is sent with the troops.

Again he says:--⁴⁸

General Bragg must have been very agreeably disappointed when he saw our troops going away without firing a shot, and to see an expedition costing millions of dollars given up when the hollowness of the rebel shell was about to be exposed.

Again:--⁴⁹

And now, sir, I beg that you will allow me to work this thing out, and leave nothing undone to take the place. Could I depend on the sailors for landing I would ask no army force; but a large portion of the crews are new in the service, having little or no knowledge of the musket or drill, and I intend to make no mistakes if I can avoid it. A repulse is always demoralizing, and sailors cannot stand the concentrated fire of the regular troops.

And yet sixteen days afterwards on the second attack, he landed fourteen hundred of these poor fellows and four hundred marines, and ordered them to assault the fort, and quite one fourth of the whole force were murdered or disabled.⁵⁰

Well, sir, it could have been taken on Christmas with five hundred men without losing a Soldier. There were not twenty men in the fort, and those were poor, miserable, panic-stricken people, cowering there with fear, while one or two desperate men in one of the upper casemates some distance above Fort Fisher [mound battery] managed to fire one gun that seldom hit anyone . . . .

[810]

Both Whiting and Lamb, who were in command of the fort, say that on the first day they fired from the fort — not from mound battery--“six hundred and seventy-two shells by count,” firing slowly and deliberately.⁵¹

Colonel Lamb says they fired on the two days six hundred shells, exclusive of grape and canister. (See page 816.) What becomes of Porter's statement that only one gun was fired by one or two desperate men, and that from the mound battery?

General Weitzel went on shore, determined what the report of the defences would be, for General Butler had made an opinion for him.⁵² . . .
If this temporary failure succeeds in sending General Butler into private life it is not to be regretted, for it cost only a certain amount of shells, which I would expend in a month's target practice anyhow.

Again he says:--

The firing this day [the 25th] was slow, only sufficient to amuse the enemy while the army landed.⁵³

In his plan of the first attack accompanying his report, and by his general order, the new ironsides and monitors were to lie in not less than three and one half fathoms of water, which he says would place them about three quarters of a mile from the fort. The plan itself shows that the ironsides ranged in a line from a little over three quarters of a mile to a mile from the fort. The next division of vessels lay at a distance of a mile from the fort, and the rest of the fleet, with the exception of the reserves, ranged from about a mile and an eighth to a mile and a half distant from the fort, the reserves being between a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half away. If the plan is a true one, and had been followed, full too long range, as will be seen, was given for the fire on the fort. But it was not followed, as it appears that some of the vessels did not go up within those lines, so that they had to be placed nearer the fort on the attack on the 25th in order that they might be able to throw their shells onto the land, “as they had fallen into the water on the day before,” more than a hundred yards short of the fort.⁵⁴ [811]

His vessels were short of ammunition:--

As the ammunition gave out the vessels retired from action. . . .
I have ordered the largest vessels to proceed to Beaufort to fill up with ammunition. . . .
In one hour and fifteen minutes after the first shot was fired not a shot came from the fort . . . . Finding that the batteries were silenced completely, I directed the ships to keep up a moderate fire in hopes of attracting the attention of the transports bringing them in.

In his letter of Jan. 9, 1865, to the Secretary of the Navy, attacking me for not making preparation for a more lengthy stay at Fort Fisher because I relied upon the powder-boat, he has the effrontery to say:--

I thought a good deal would be done by the explosion, but still I laid in a double allowance of shell and shot, and did not depend on a doubtful experiment.

Yet after a few hours of not rapid firing upon the fort by his vessels some had to withdraw from the attack, being short of ammunition, and he sent the larger vessels the next day to Beaufort to replenish their supply, the fleet having expended no more shot and shell than he would use in a “month's target practice.” ⁵⁵

How do these facts comport with his reckless statement that he put in a double allowance of ammunition?

What was Fort Fisher and its condition at the time of the two several attacks upon it?

We have shown what Porter thought of the capabilities of Fort Fisher as a fortification. Now this fort had been constructed at great labor by the Confederacy, and by its ablest and most experienced engineers. It was built to hold one of its most important points, which had become its chief depot for supplies from abroad of arms, clothing, and ammunition. But he says of it, “There never was a fort that invited soldiers to walk in and take possession more plainly than Fort Fisher.” ⁵⁶ This was his opinion after the first attack, and upon it he based all his abuse of me for not accepting the “invitation.” [812]

To show what Fort Fisher really was as a military work I will call Porter as my first witness. After it had been taken he thus describes it to the Secretary of the Navy in his official report, dated Jan. 26, 1864:--

These works are tremendous. I was in Fort Malakoff a few days after it surrendered to the French and English; the combined armies of the two nations were many months capturing that stronghold, and it won't compare, either in size or strength, to Fort Fisher.⁵⁷

How about its having been devised to “invite” soldiers to come in and take possession of it?

Again in his detailed report to the Secretary of the Navy, dated Jan. 17, 1864, he uses this language:--

I have since visited Fort Fisher and the adjoining works, and find their strength greatly beyond what I had conceived. An engineer might be excusable in saying they could not be captured except by regular siege. I wonder even now how it was done. The work, as I said before is really stronger than the Malakoff tower,⁵⁸ which defied so long the combined power of France and England.

I might rest upon this testimony as to the strength of Fort Fisher, but I will not, as my misfortune is that my witness has shown himself to be a reckless, consciousless, and impudent liar, while on the stand, and I must proceed further by better witnesses to show the condition of Fort Fisher at the time of the two attacks. I therefore call Col. William Lamb, of the Confederate Army, who was in command of the fort on the occasion of both attacks, and who largely superintended the construction of the fort, on which he was engaged for years. He had been in command of Fort Fisher since the 4th of July, 1862, and with the aid of General Whiting, who was a very accomplished engineer when he left our army to join the Confederacy, had constructed the work at enormous labor and expense for the purpose of enabling it to sustain a very heavy artillery fire.

The works were of sand. Todleben, the Russian engineer who built the Malakoff at the Crimea, first taught military engineers [813] that sand was the best material of which to construct a fort to resist a heavy artillery fire, and Whiting, having plenty of that material at hand, used it in the construction of Fort Fisher. Colonel Lamb describes the fort as follows in the “Century War books” :--

The outer slopes were twenty feet high from the bearme to the top of the parapet, at an angle of forty-five degrees, and were sodded with marsh grass which grew luxuriantly. The parapet was not less than twenty-five feet thick with an inclination of one foot. The revertment was five feet nine inches high from the floor of the gun chambers and these were some twelve feet or more from the interior plane. There were heavy traverses exceeding in size any known to engineers, from enfilading fire. They extended some twelve feet on the parapet and were twelve feet or more in height above the parapet, running back thirty feet or more. In each traverse was an alternate magazine or bomb-proof, the latter ventilated by an air chamber. Passages were constructed through the traverses in the interior to a work forming additional bomb-proofs for the reliefs for the guns.⁵⁹

The land front was about one half mile wide, and over it an assault by troops must be made unless they landed from boats on the sea front of the work. It was very strongly defended. First, there were three lines of subterranean torpedoes extending from the river back to the seashore, the torpedoes being five or six hundred feet up the land face of the work, and so arranged that each line could be exploded without destroying the other. They were placed near together so as to blow up any assaulting column coming down the beach to attack the fort. These were to be exploded by means of underground wires attached to electrical batteries placed in a bombproof where they could not be destroyed by any artillery fire. These batteries did survive in working order both attacks on the fort. Next was a line of palisades made of heavy timber sharpened at the top, and nine feet high, pierced with apertures through which the garrison could sweep the plain with musketry.

It was the strongest earthwork built by the Confederacy. It was defended by forty-four heavy guns, twenty of which and four Napoleons had their range up the beach, seventeen of them being on the land front, and three upon the bastions at either end of the land face of the fort. [814]

At the time of the proposed attack of Weitzel but one out of the, twenty heavy guns had been disturbed by the fire of the navy; the torpedoes and palisades were all in order and the Napoleons ready for use. The fort was not silenced, but was only reserving its scant supply of shot and shell. The single long range gun with which the iron-clad could be reached to do any damage was an English one hundred and fifty-pounder Armstrong gun, and for this there were but thirteen shells, and no other ammunition could be used in it. For the forty-four heavy guns and three mortars the fort had not over thirty-six hundred shot and shell.⁶⁰

The following extract from a letter of Colonel Lamb will show the condition of the fort as regards its capabilities for defence on the, occasion of the first attack, December 24 and 25:--

To the Editor of the Globe:--
Among the papers which were saved and returned to me after the war, was my original Ms. report of the first battle of Fort Fisher, December 24 and 25, 1864, and my journal from October 24, 1864, to the afternoon of January 14, 1865, giving details of all important events, and I therefore have not to recall from memory the occurrences of a quarter of a century ago, but have contemporaneous entries made from personal observation and official reports. My New England friends must not, therefore, feel annoyed at my corrections, which I make in the interest of the truth of history.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The hand to hand fight in the fort was a prolonged and terrible one.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lastly, upon the authority of some of my men, who were captured, one of your informants says that General Butler could easily have taken the fort on Christmas night. These men did not know what they were talking about, and while General Butler is fully able to take care of himself, it is due to Major-General Weitzel, the accomplished officer upon. whose report General Butler withdrew his forces from the attempt to capture Fort Fisher, Christmas night, to say that he acted wisely; that if he had made the attempt, his small force would have been almost annihilated before they reached the works proper, if any could be gotten so far, and it is a shame that Bragg allowed them to re-embark without capture. [815]
To the average reader the subsequent capture of Fort Fisher seems sufficient to substantiate the charge against General Butler, but in reality the facts connected with the final capture prove that his forces could not have successfully assaulted the work. When Weitzel's skirmish line approached on Christmas afternoon, and the fire of the fleet ceased, I purposely withheld the full fire of the infantry and artillery until an attack should be made in force. Only one gun commanding the land approach had been permanently disabled, and I could have opened a terrific fire of grape and canister from twenty heavy guns and four Napoleons on a narrow beach.
If the troops could have faced this with a knowledge that in their rear was an army equally as large to attack them under cover of darkness when the fight began, I had three lines of subterranean torpedoes in perfect order, which could have blown up consecutively three advancing columns. If, by any possibility, these could have been passed by any portion of an assaulting column, I had an almost perfect line of palisades, behind which I had thrown more than half the garrison. I had that night nine hundred veterans, sixty C. S. N. sailors and marines and four hundred and fifty junior reserves between sixteen and eighteen years of age.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our friends are mistaken in saying that the guns of Fort Fisher were silenced in the first attack, and in this connection I will repeat what I wrote for the “Century War book” :--
The guns of Fort Fisher were not silenced. On account of a limited supply of ammunition I gave orders to fire each gun not more than once in thirty minutes, except by special order, unless an attempt should be made to run by the fort, when discretion was given each gun commander to use his piece effectively. There were forty-four guns. On December 24, 672 shots were expended; a detailed report was received from each battery. Only three guns were rendered unserviceable, and these by the fire of the fleet disabling the carriages. On December 25, six hundred shots were expended, exclusive of grape and canister. Detailed reports were made. Five guns were disabled by the fleet, making eight in all. Besides two seven-inch Brooke guns exploded, leaving thirty-four heavy guns on Christmas night. The last guns on the 24th and 25th were fired by Fort Fisher on the retiring fleet. In the first fight the total casualties were sixty-one.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I had no fear of an assault, and because during a bombardment which Tendered an assault impossible, I covered my men and a few struggling skirmishers, too few to attract attention, got near the fort, and some gallant officers thought they could have carried the work, it does not [816] follow that they would not have paid dearly for their temerity if they had made the attempt.
In the second attack, when my torpedoes were destroyed, my palisades so torn up and cut down that they furnished a protection rather than an impediment to the assailants, when all the heavy guns, save one, bearing on the land approach had been disabled, and the killed and wounded had reduced my available force to about my strength on Christmas night, it took more than three times the number which General Weitzel had, of the very flower of the army and navy, five hours to capture the fort; and so desperate was the resistance of those same men who were with me Christmas night and so doubtful the result in the work, that I have heard that General Terry, naturally fearing an attack from Bragg in the rear, sent word to General Ames to make one more effort, and if he failed, to stop and intrench. Reinforced by additional troops the effort was made, and resistance became less effective until with thin ranks and ammunition exhausted the garrison surrendered.
William Lamb. Norfolk, Va., Jan. 20, 1890.

Let us now see how the fort appeared to General Weitzel at the time he reconnoitred it from a knoll a short distance from the fort. In his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War,⁶¹ he says:--

I pushed a skirmish line too, I think, within about one hundred and fifty yards of the work. I had about three hundred men left in the main body, about eight hundred yards from the work. There was a knoll that had evidently been built for a magazine, an artificial knoll on which I stood, and which gave me a full view of the work and the ground in front of it. I saw that the work, as a defensive work, was not injured at all, except that one gun about midway of the land face was dismounted. I counted sixteen guns all in proper position, which made it evident to me that they had not been injured; because when a gun is injured, you can generally see it from the way in which it stands. The grass slopes of the traverses and of the parapets did not appear broken in the least. The regular shapes of the slopes of the traverses and slopes of the parapets were not disturbed. I did not see a single opening in the row of palisades that was in front of the ditch, it seemed to me perfectly intact.
From all the information which I gained on my first visit to New Inlet, as from what I saw on this reconnoissance, together with the information that I had obtained from naval officers who had been on the [817] blockade there for over two years, I was convinced that Fort Fisher was a regular bastioned work; the relief was very high. I had been told by deserters from it that the ditch was about twenty feet wide and six feet deep, and that it was crossed by a bridge. I saw the traverses between each pair of guns, and was perfectly certain within my own mind that they were bomb-proofs; they ought to have been and they were. It was a stronger work than I had ever seen or heard of being assailed during this war. I have commanded in person three assaulting columns in this war. I have been twice assailed in this war by assaulting columns of the enemy, when I have had my men intrenched. Neither in the first three cases where I assailed the enemy's works, nor in the two cases where I was myself assailed, were the works, in an engineering point of view, one eighth as strong as that work was. Both times when I was assaulted by the enemy, the intrenchments behind which my men fought were constructed in one night, and in each case after the men had had two or three days of very hard work. I have been repulsed in every attempt I have made to carry an enemy's work although I have had as good troops as any in the United States army, and their record shows it. The troops that I had under my command in the first two assaults have been with General Sheridan in the whole of his last campaign — the first division of the Nineteenth Army Corps--and they fought as well under me as they have under him. The third time that I assailed a position was on the Williamsburg road. I had two of the best brigades of the Eighteenth Army Corps. It was a weakly defended line, and not a very strong one. Still, I lost a great many men, and was repulsed. In the two instances where the enemy assaulted my position they were repulsed with heavy loss.
After that experience, with the information I had obtained from reading and study — for before this war I was an instructor at the Military Academy for three years under Professor Mahan, on these very subjects — remembering well the remark of the lieutenant-general commanding, that it was his intention I should command that expedition, because another officer selected by the War Department had once shown timidity, and in face of the fact that I had been appointed a major-general only twenty days before, and needed confirmation; notwithstanding all that I went back to General Butler, and told him I considered it would be murder to order an attack on that work with that force. I understood Colonel Comstock to agree with me perfectly, although I did not ask him, and General Butler has since said that he did.
Upon my report General Butler himself reconnoitred the work; ran up close with the Chamberlain, and took some time to look at it. He then said that he agreed with me, and directed the re-embarkation of the troops.

[818]

It will be observed that Porter says, when he speaks of the fort as being stronger than Malakoff Tower, “an engineer officer might be excusable in saying that it could not be captured except by regular siege,” and that he even wonders how it was captured.⁶² So then General Weitzel was excusable in his view of the fort, and he saw the land face, where the assault must be made, was uninjured. But how can the statements of Porter be excused when he says that it “might have been taken on Christmas Day by five hundred men without losing a soldier; there were not twenty men in the fort, and those were poor, miserable, panic-stricken people, cowering with fear.” ⁶³ Colonel Lamb says he had fourteen hundred and fifty men in the fort on Christmas Day. Had Porter seen any of them go away? How could he suppose that the Confederates had built such a work there and left only twenty men to defend it? In the same report Porter says that only “one or two desperate men managed to fire one gun which seldom hit anyone,” during the bombardment. Colonel Lamb says he expended six hundred shot and shell besides grape and canister on that day, and that he had expended six hundred more on the 24th. How shall Porter be excused with such a work before him, its strength visible to every eye, for saying that it was only a “rebel shell” ?⁶⁴ These reports were only downright falsehoods, made for the purpose of getting Welles to allow him to make another attempt.

Porter's performances at the first attack were not intended to demolish the fort; he did not mean that they should take the fort. He says that his order was that the firing should not be rapid; that only one division of guns should fire at a time from each vessel.⁶⁵ His fleet being anchored around the fort, the battery of one broadside of the ships only should be brought to bear. Ship's guns are divided into two divisions at least for each broadside, so that only one quarter of his guns were, according to his orders, used at a time at most and some of his vessels, he says, did not fire a single shot. He further says that during the day while the troops were being landed, which was most of the day of the 25th, he only fired to amuse the enemy.⁶⁶ He further says that all the shell that he expended in both days were not more than what he would expend in target practice in a month anyhow.⁶⁷ [819]

Had he any motive for doing this? He says the expense was “well incurred as it retires General Butler to private life,” ⁶⁸ although he admits that the expense amounts to millions.⁶⁹

I had criticised his foolish performances in bombarding for eight pays Forts St. Philip and Jackson, leaving the latter, upon which he expended most of his work, as defensible as before. Weitzel had so reported it, and therefore Porter did not like him, and me he hated as the devil hates holy water, and he did not show me the ordinary courtesy of conferring with me.

He says on the first day (December 24th) Fort Fisher was silenced in an hour and a half.⁷⁰ He says substantially the same of it on the 25th. I knew that it was not silenced and that earthworks of that description which he saw before him could not be so silenced.

I had seen him with twenty-one mortars bombarding Fort Jackson on the Mississippi, a little further off, for seven days throwing in thirteen-inch shells, and he did not effectually demolish but one gun. Weitzel had seen the same thing, and he knew that fort was not disabled.

Colonel Lamb, then commander of Fort Fisher, says there was but one gun out of twenty on the land face demolished, and out of his forty-four barbette guns,--that is, guns mounted on top of the works,--but three had been demolished, and two of them, Brooke's guns, had been exploded. He also says that at the first attack the fire of the fleet was desultory, and did but little harm, a large portion of the shells going clear over the fort into the water of the river.

How was it at the second attack? Porter says he made a new plan. The fire was very fast, and from all the broadsides of his vessels which could be brought to bear.⁷¹ His plan shows that he arranged the iron-clads and heavier vessels, some eighteen of them, so as to bear directly on a quarter to a half a mile nearer range than at the first attack (some of them seven hundred to one thousand yards from the land face of the fort), and he reports that the fort was reduced to a pulp.⁷²

He doesn't claim any such damage done to the fort or its approaches on the first attack, and in that attack he claims to have expended only as much shot and shell as he would have expended [820] for target practice in a month anyhow, and he says he expended fifty thousand shells on the fort, and had supplied himself with as many more.

Porter says over and over again that in the second attack he had the most cordial co-operation of General Terry, whom he denominates his beau-ideal of a soldier, and that they had consultation on board his ship, and elsewhere, as to the manner of making the attack, and that he aided Terry with two thousand of his sailors and marines in making the land attack, which Colonel Lamb says he thought was to be the principal assault of the fort.

Upon this whole subject of the condition of Fort Fisher at the time of both attacks of the defences, and of the probable results of an assault, taking the circumstances in view, I call a witness for whose statements I claim the utmost credence.

When the expedition to Fort Fisher was under investigation by the Committee on the Conduct of the War, I sent, by a gentleman of my staff, certain questions to be answered by Maj.-Gen. W. H. C. Whiting of the Confederate army, under whose supervision as an engineer during two years Fort Fisher was built. I did not take his deposition in form, because he was lying a prisoner of war in one of our hospitals on his dying bed, from wounds received in the second attack on Fort Fisher. He died immediately after his communication with me. I apologized to him, saying that I would not add to his sufferings by having a formal deposition taken, but I wished that he would answer as he would under the sanction of an oath, and he gave me his dying declarations, which are received in law in cases of murder as effective as testimony given on the stand.⁷³ General Whiting desired that the questions might be put, and that he might answer them separately in his own way, which, of course, he was permitted to do, and every one of his answers directly contradicts Porter where they speak of the same matter. I submit the testimony with great confidence to the judgment of the reader.⁷⁴

The Committee on the Conduct of the War investigated this subject in February, 1865, calling all the witnesses who they deemed could give material testimony in regard to it, and having all the papers furnished to them. That testimony was taken under oath. General [821] Grant, General Weitzel, and Admiral Porter were fully examined by the committee. There were upon the committee members of both political parties, and the result of the investigation was a unanimous report through their chairman, Hon. Ben F. Wade, which closed with the following words:--

In conclusion, your committee would say, from all the testimony before them, that the determination of General Butler not to assault the fort seems to have been fully justified by all the facts and circumstances then known or afterwards ascertained.
Respectfully submitted,
B. F. Wade, Chairman.

I had hoped that this report would justify my action in saving the lives of my men without any detriment to the public service, but, unfortunately, so far as I know, it was never published in any of the newspapers which tried me before the country; and whenever any malicious scoundrel wants to make a fling at me and my military conduct, he always says: “How about Fort Fisher?” I will here answer him:--

I believe my withdrawal from Fort Fisher to face the calumny which has rolled its waves over me, and which I calmly looked in the face when I made my decision to withdraw my troops, was the best and bravest act of my life. I feared it would destroy my friend Weitzel, and so I took pains to put before the committee the acts which were done as if they had been done by my command. There was but one subject in regard to which General Weitzel and I disagreed. As a junior officer in the regular army he has said, and I have no doubt he would have done so although against his own judgment, that he would have held on to his position. Indeed, I believe his words were those of a junior officer. “As a junior officer I should not obey the command of my superior, leaving him to bear the blame and responsibility of the event.” I believe that if General Grant had been there he would have been of opinion with me, that the troops should have been withdrawn, under the circumstances, and that his order, although in the letter directing differently, would have been reversed by him. Whether it would or not, at any rate I thought it my duty not to be so controlled, nor to throw away the lives and liberties of my brave officers and soldiers by a useless [822] adherence to forms. And though I have suffered more from thus acting on my judgment than from any other act of my life, I rejoice — I trust modestly — with exceeding joy that I had sufficient firmness to do as I did do. Weitzel had no profession but arms, and his disobedience of orders would have ruined him in that profession. That we foresaw the result when we acted, and that I endeavored to repair for Weitzel as much as I could the consequences of his act, will appear from the letters between us:--

Willard's, Jan. 23, 1865.
Maj.-Gen. G. Weitzel:
My Dear Weitzel:--I am afraid you have been annoyed lest I might possibly think that your advice at Fort Fisher was not such as I ought to have acted upon. Let me assure you that I have never in any moment, amid the delightful stream of obloquy which is pouring upon me, doubted the military sagacity of the advice you gave, or the propriety of my action under it. Indeed, my friend, I am glad I was there to act as a shield to a young officer in a moment of fearful responsibility, from the consequences of a proper act which might have injured him in his profession, but which cannot harm me, who have a different one. The judgment of cool reason hereafter will applaud it, but hot passion might have harmed you, as it has done me, for the hour. Indeed, it was in view of this very event that I went at all. With the invocation of every blessing upon you and yours,
I am, your friend,
Benj. F. Butler, Major-General.

Cincinnati, Jan. 26, 1865.
My Dear General:--I was so delighted this morning to receive your note from Willard's. As the truth became developed I saw I had not made a mistake. At first, I was terribly frightened.
Many of my friends and fellow-citizens here, too, at first, made long faces, and only one paper, our oldest and most respectable, the Gazette, stood out for you boldly as against “marking Pot Porter” as they called him.
In one of his best despatches, however, Porter is compelled to acknowledge the correctness of our judgment . . . .
Yours truly,
G. Weitzel, Major-General.

[823]

Farragut, who had been offered the command of the expedition against Fort Fisher, but was — unhappily for me — too sick to take it, after he learned that the expedition was to go with my army, wrote me a confidential letter in which he strongly advised me not to go with the navy under the command of Porter, because he would not co-operate with me. If I had got the letter in season,--as it expressed my own thought,--I doubt whether I should have gone even for the reasons which urged me to go; but, alas for me! it came too late.

After the affair at Fort Fisher Grant treated Porter very kindly; and Porter was enthusiastic in his praise of Grant, and almost adulatory in his conduct toward him. They were apparently the best possible friends. During this time Porter wrote a confidential letter to Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. The close, friendship of Grant and Porter remained until Farragut died, when Porter was appointed admiral in his place.

Grant appointed Borie, a respectable sugar merchant of Philadelphia, his Secretary of the Navy. Porter immediately claimed that as admiral it was his duty to carry on all matters appertaining to the personnel of the navy and its ships, and that Borie should look after what I may call the civil administration of the navy. Porter placed himself in the office of the secretary and attempted to carry on all the business of that office as admiral. Borie's incumbency of his office was short, and Grant appointed Hon. George M. Robeson his successor as Secretary of the Navy. When he entered upon the duties of his office he undertook to be Secretary of the Navy, and finding Porter in his way and interfering with him too much, advised him to remove his office elsewhere, which was done, and Robeson assumed the full administration of the duties of secretary. This mortally offended Porter and he and one of Grant's staff entered into a cabal to get Robeson removed and to lessen his influence with Grant, Porter claiming to Grant that he had been his fidus achates. While that was going on one of the clerks in the Navy Department, in examining the correspondence on file, discovered and brought to the attention of Mr. Robeson the confidential letter of Porter to Welles, and that was so abusive of Grant and made such accusation against him that the secretary thought it his duty to bring it to the President's attention. Grant read it with great astonishment and chagrin; [824] sent for Porter, handed him the letter, and asked him if he wrote it. Porter at first began to deny it but the evidence was too strong and he admitted the writing but attempted to excuse it. Grant said to him that the contents of that letter were such that thereafterwards Porter's relations with him as President should be simply official, and they continued to be official, merely, through Grant's term of office, and Robeson was no longer annoyed with in Porter.

I put this letter⁷⁵ of Porter's in the appendix as a literary curiosity. It is a photographic illustration of every bad trait in Porter's character, and I think the letter could not have been written by any man in the world but Porter. But of that the reader can judge for himself, bearing in mind the intimate relations existing between Porter and Grant at the time it was written.

Decorative Motif.

[825] [826]

1 No great amount of powder had ever been exploded. The largest known to me at that time was at Erith. where there was only 1,040 barrels of powder, all of which was not exploded, and that was by three distinct explosions. Since then, on June 16, 1887, the schooner Parallel, having on board a general cargo, including forty-two tons of giant powder, drifted ashore hard and fast in the Golden Gate below the Cliff House, when, without premonition, there was a terrific explosion, followed a second later by another which seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth. Not a stick of the vessel was to be seen, while debris of the wreck and pieces of iron were scattered about the country for three-quarters of a mile in every direction. The Cliff House, a very large summer hotel, situated on the top of a hill a hundred yards away and a hundred and fifty feet above the sea level, not only was thrown on its side but the wreck was entirely crushed in like card-board. An immense wave, weighing tons, was lifted in the air and carried over the top of the house. Every window and door in the house was shattered into kindling, and the foundations of the building were crushed so as to be unsafe. A two-story cottage of large size, occupied as a private residence, two hundred feet further inland, was blown bodily off its foundations and moved five feet further from the sea. The adjacent stables, two hundred feet long, were utterly demolished, not a single stick being left standing. The shock was felt for many miles.

During the year in which this note was written there was an explosion in Italy of not a very much larger amount of powder than that exploded at Erith, and it caused very widely extended and disastrous damage and loss of life.

Neither of these explosions was instantaneous, but there were consecutive explosions. What would be the effect of an instantaneous explosion of like quantities of powder or dynamite is still left to conjecture.

I write this note with a view to having action taken that no large amounts of powder shall be stored in the vicinity of populous cities, and in order that municipal authorities may have their attention called to the matter. But what is everybody's business is nobody's until a great disaster is realized.

2 See Appendix No. 97.

3 See Appendix No. 98.

4 See Appendix No. 99.

5 See Appendix No. 100.

6 See Appendix No. 101.

7 See Appendix No. 102.

8 See Appendix No. 103.

9 See Appendix No. 104.

10 See Appendix No. 105.

11 See Appendix No. 106.

12 See Appendix No. 107.

13 See Appendix No. 108.

14 See Appendix No. 109.

15 See Appendix No. 110.

16 See Appendix No. 111.

17 See Appendix No. 112.

18 See Appendix No. 113.

19 See Appendix No. 114.

20 See Appendix No. 115.

21 Testimony of General Weitzel before the Committee on the Conduct of the War on the Fort Fisher expedition, pp. 68, 69, 70:--

On Wednesday morning early, a steamer came in from the Department of the South and reported the sea as very smooth outside. We at once started, found the transports already anchored off Cape Henry, and started them at once to sea. When we left the harbor, I did not see there a single vessel that belonged to Admiral Porter's fleet.
I think all the difference between General Butler and Admiral Porter as to the time we sailed is at that one point. Admiral Porter did not know that our transports went up the bay, but supposed they went right out to sea. Thence he says that General Butler started before he did. That, I think, is the cause of difference between them on that point.

22 See Appendix No. 116.

23 See Appendix No. 117.

24 See Appendix No. 118.

25 The testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War shows that only two hundred and fifteen tons were ever got on board. The navy got one hundred and fifty tons of that from the army, and supplied only sixty-five tons instead of one hundred and fifty tons as agreed.

26 See Appendix No. 119.

27 See Appendix No. 120.

28 See Appendix No. 121.

29 See Appendix No. 122.

30 The lieutenant in charge of the boats reports that the navy captured Flag Pond Hill battery and the prisoners.

31 See Appendix No. 123.

32 See Appendix No. 124.

33 See Appendix No. 125.

34 See Appendix No. 125.

35 See Appendix No. 126.

36 See Appendix No. 127.

37 See Appendix No. 128.

38 See Testimony of Gen. H. C. Whiting (Appendix 124, Q. 7): “Twelve (12) and fifteen (15) hundred yards, and not nearer.”

39 See Appendix No. 129.

40 See Appendix No. 130.

41 See Appendix No. 131.

42 See Appendix No. 129.

43 See Appendix No. 117.

44 See Appendix No. 132.

45 See Appendix No. 133.

46 See Appendix No. 134.

47 Porter's Official Report, December 27, 1864.

48 Porter's Report, December 31, 1864. （See Appendix No. 139.)

49 Confidential letter to Secretary Welles, December 29, 1864.

50 See Appendix No. 135

51 See Appendix No. 124.

52 Confidential letter to Welles, Dec. 29, 1864. （See Appendix No. 138.)

53 Porter's Report, Dec 26, 1864. （See Appendix No. 141.)

54 See Appendix No. 141.

55 See Appendix No. 138.

56 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Vol. II., p. 165.

57 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Vol. II., p. 184.

58 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Vol. II., p. 190.

59 Meaning a place to which the soldiers could retreat for rest, while a new detachment relieved them.

60 See Appendix No. 136.

61 Report before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Fort Fisher, pp. 72, 73.

62 See Appendix No. 137.

63 See Appendix No. 138.

64 See Appendix No. 139.

65 See Appendix No. 140.

66 See Appendix No. 141.

67 See Appendix No, 138.

68 See Appendix No. 138.

69 See Appendix No. 139.

70 See Appendix No. 142.

71 See Appendix No. 143.

72 See Appendix No. 135.

73 General Whiting's statement was received as testimony by the Committtee on the Conduct of the War

74 See Appendix No. 124.

75 See Appendix No. 144.

A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.

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Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

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Chapter 17: Fort Fisher.